Rick Kogan

ColumnistSidewalks

Born and raised and still living in Chicago, Rick Kogan has worked for the Chicago Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune, where he is currently a senior writer and columnist. Named Chicago's Best Reporter in 1999 and inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2003, he is currently host of “After Hours with Rick Kogan” on WGN radio. He is the author of a dozen books, including “Everybody Pays: Two Men, One Murder and the Price of Truth” (with Maurice Possley), “America's Mom: The Life, Lessons and Legacy of Ann Landers,” “A Chicago Tavern,” the history of the Billy Goat, and “Sidewalks I” and “Sidewalks II,” collections of his columns and the work of photographer Charles Osgood.

Recent Articles

The pen is not mightier than the sword. And it is certainly no match for the .40-caliber Glock, .38 special Ruger, 9 mm Smith & Wesson or any of the other contemporary instruments that bring daily death and lingering misery to the streets of Chicago and beyond. But there is hope and that hope does...

For Joe Mantegna, the native Chicagoan who with some acting pals created and starred in the durable theatrical sensation “Bleacher Bums” in 1977, Wednesday night was a “wild night.” The Tony Award-winning actor, who has had a long and successful career in film and television, watched the game with...

Many of the books that sit on or near my desk are old books, books by such authors as Nelson Algren, Studs Terkel, Mike Royko, my father Herman and some of the other usual suspects in the Chicago literary realm, as well as some lesser known. Have you, for instance, ever read "The Gold Coast and...

William L. Petersen—“Billy” to his friends, legendary Chicago theater actor, longtime star of the TV show “C.S.I.” and of such films as “To Live and Dies in L.A.,” “Manhunter” and the baseball movie “Long Gone”—watched the seventh game of the World Series at home in Los Angeles with his wife Gina...

Monday is Halloween, that most pleasantly preposterous holiday. Last weekend, in preparation for this, a little boy was standing in the greatest costume store in the world, Fantasy Costumes at 4065 N. Milwaukee Ave., torn between transforming himself into a cowboy, Spider-Man, a hobo or Curious...

Two smart and lively young women, Jasmine Kwong and Megan Doherty, have spent much of their time over the past five years trying to capture the meaning of a bookstore. As they write in the foreword to the book that is the manifestation of their energetic and heartfelt efforts, "We set out to document...

You shouldn't need a map to get to the corner of Clark and Washington streets in the heart of the Loop but if you do you will probably just punch your phone and let technology be your guide. Such is our modern way, the efficient and practical way. It is technology at its most refined (so far) and,...

Legend has it that the recent Nobel Prize winner in literature stopped in Chicago on his way from his home in Minnesota to fame in New York City in 1961 — but like a lot of stories that surround this singular and hard-to-pin-down talent, who knows? What we do know for sure is that Bob Dylan was...